Do you believe in God?

[Danoff]

I don't believe in god any longer. I was raised catholic and was a believer but became atheist when I was about 13.

I have many reasons for no longer accepting the god hypothesis and there is no need to go into those here. However I would also add that I don't even want to believe in a supreme, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being. Why? Well, if our universe was created by a god then that god would appear to exhibit the behaviours of a raving psychopath and perhaps deserves our contempt, not our worship.

I had a weird dream like 15 years ago. I was standing in the rain under umbrellas around a circle of religious holymen. I was trying to explain to them that god is obviously a human construct. I said something flippant to them like "if god were real, why doesn't he just part the clouds and stop the rain" and right when I did that a hole in the clouds opened up and a stream of light hit me from above and in that dream I became convinced that a god had heard me and done it.

I woke up screaming!

It was truly terrifying, and I think in general that the concept of a supreme being should be truly terrifying to people. Even some religious figures embrace this view of God, fear is the heart of love or some nonsense.

 

[UKMikey]

I think in general that the concept of a supreme being should be truly terrifying to people. Even some religious figures embrace this view of God, fear is the heart of love or some nonsense.

Proverbs 9:10 sounds like a good example of this.

 

[TexRex]

"Keaton always said, 'I don't believe in God, but I fear Him.' Well, I believe in God...and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze."

Edit: Speaking of flippancy...I think I've brought this up here, but it's something I've been pondering for decades and have mentioned it so many times that I lose track; if we capitalize pronouns in reference to God--such as "He", "His" and "Him"--do you suppose He capitalizes "me"?

 

[Dotini]

God is not a person, a being or an entity. Rather it is universal consciousness, gravity, light and electromagnetism. Add dust and time, then everything happens.

 

[Imari]

God is not a person, a being or an entity. Rather it is universal consciousness, gravity, light and electromagnetism. Add dust and time, then everything happens.

Light is electromagnetism. And you forgot the weak and strong nuclear forces. Don't know where you're getting a universal consciousness from, the speed of light would seem to eliminate a physically widespread consciousness as a possibility.

 

[TexRex]

God is not a person, a being or an entity.

 

[UKMikey]

I think I've brought this up here, but it's something I've been pondering for decades and have mentioned it so many times that I lose track; if we capitalize pronouns in reference to God--such as "He", "His" and "Him"--do you suppose He capitalizes "me"?

I've certainly seen "your" capitalized as "Your" in print before. This is an equally flippant example but I'd suggest maybe having a look at the lyrics of Christian hymns for further instances.

 

[TexRex]

I've certainly seen "your" capitalized as "Your" in print before. This is an equally flippant example but I'd suggest maybe having a look at the lyrics of Christian hymns for further instances.

Oooh, yeah...Douglas Adams; probably my favorite atheist (favorite for his works rather than his atheism, mind).

 

[Dotini]

the speed of light would seem to eliminate a physically widespread consciousness as a possibility.

Quantum entanglement is an example of how consciousness may operate faster than the speed of light.
https://ideapod.com/new-theory-consciousness-mind-isnt-confined-brain-even-body/

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I believe in a thing called Love.

 

[TexRex]

I believe I can fly. (link to R. Kelly music video intentionally withheld)

 

[Danoff]

I believe in a thing called Love.

 

[ryzno]

I believe in traffic and weather gods.
/s

 

[Dotini]

God is love but equally god is hate. And right now she is getting mad like Queen Daenerys, fixing to scourge Earth with fire and blood climate change, just like before.

 

[TexRex]

What's that reaction supposed to be?

 

[MatskiMonk]

I believe this is a thread about books and semantics.

 

[Imari]

Quantum entanglement is an example of how consciousness may operate faster than the speed of light.
https://ideapod.com/new-theory-consciousness-mind-isnt-confined-brain-even-body/

Quantum entanglement doesn't transmit information faster than the speed of light. As it is currently understood, it is not a candidate for how a consciousness might operate faster than the speed of light.

The only methods I've seen for transmitting information that are even moderately plausible according to current understanding involve time travel. And that's simply because they're unverifiable extreme cases from theories that are known to be incomplete and involving exotic matter that may not even exist, so those methods may or may not be possible in reality.

 

[Dotini]

In a level 3 parallel universe, Max Tegmark says I can be in several places at the same time. But he also says more work needs to be done in the field of quantum mechanics.

 

[TexRex]

Do you believe in God?

 

[Dotini]

I believe universal consciousness is a good start in reply to the question.

God is not a person, a being or an entity. Rather it is universal consciousness, gravity, light and electromagnetism. Add dust and time, then everything happens.

 

[Liquid]

God is not a person, a being or an entity

That kind of contradicts how gods are presented and/or represented in almost every religion on earth.

 

[Dennisch]

That kind of contradicts how gods are presented and/or represented in almost every religion on earth.

Well. That would Shirley fit in the bible nicely then.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I believe universal consciousness is a good start in reply to the question.

It's an interesting train of thought but, as @Liquid points out, not one that would be entertained in most religions as defining their god(s).

 

[Dobermann92]

I believe universal consciousness is a good start in reply to the question.

Don't get me started on Deepak Chopra...he makes things up as he speaks, I've seen a lot of failed debates of him, it isn't bad as a religion, but it is weird as hell and has the same amount of evindence for it.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Don't get me started on Deepak Chopra...he makes things up as he speaks, I've seen a lot of failed debates of him, it isn't bad as a religion, but it is weird as hell and has the same amount of evindence for it.

Blimey, that was random. Where did that come from? Or are you crediting him (erroneously) with inventing the idea of Universal Consciousness?

 

[Dobermann92]

Blimey, that was random. Where did that come from? Or are you crediting him (erroneously) with inventing the idea of Universal Consciousness?

He is the most famous propagator of that hypothesis, that is why I brought up, I don't know if he was the inventor of it or not, but it doesn't really matter. I don't believe in universal consciousness, because it doesn't make sense to me, I'm materialistic because the evidence points to that.

 

[TenEightyOne]

He is the most famous propagator of that hypothesis, that is why I brought up

Really? Not Buddha?

To be honest I always thought Chopra was a quack purveyor of unproven linaments, I hadn't realised he'd branched to braining.

 

[Dobermann92]

Really? Not Buddha?

To be honest I always thought Chopra was a quack purveyor of unproven linaments, I hadn't realised he'd branched to braining.

Buddha isn't alive anymore and his version is more tame, but even that I would reject because of the lack of evidence. Chopra is a quack indeed, but interstingly he is popular especially within the anti-vaccine movement (even though Chopra is a doctor himself). It is like a new religion, but without a deity.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Buddha isn't alive anymore

Controversial

 

[Dotini]

inventing the idea of Universal Consciousness?

Thank you very much for using this term and capitalizing it. I was prompted to look it up in wikipedia, and found a very useful and enlightening entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_mind

Definitions
Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind movement, described the universal mind as follows:

The Universal Mind contains all knowledge. It is the potential ultimate of all things. To It all things are possible.[1]​

New Thought author Charles Haanel said of the universal mind and its relationship to humans:

The Universal Mind, being infinite and omnipotent, has unlimited resources at its command, and when we remember that it is also omnipresent, we cannot escape the conclusion that we must be an expression or manifestation of that Mind. A recognition and understanding of the resources of the subconscious mind will indicate that the only difference between the subconscious and the Universal is one of degree. They differ only as a drop of water differs from the ocean. They are the same in kind and quality, the difference is one of degree only.[2]​

The nature of the universal mind is said to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.[3]

Directly linked to Universal Consciousness is Panpsychism, another extremely useful entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

Illustration of the Neoplatonic concept of the World Soulemanating from The Absolute
In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.[1] It has taken on a wide variety of forms. Contemporary academic proponents hold that sentience or subjective experience is ubiquitous, while distancing these qualities from complex human mental attributes;[2] they ascribe a primitive form of mentality to entities at the fundamental level of physics but do not ascribe it to most aggregates, such as rocks or buildings.[1][3] On the other hand, some historical theorists ascribed attributes like life or spirits to all entities.[2]

Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers like Thales,[4] Parmenides,[citation needed]Plato,[4] Averroes,[citation needed] Spinoza,[4] Leibniz,[4] and William James.[4] Panpsychism can also be seen in ancient philosophies such as Stoicism, Taoism, Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism.[citation needed] During the 19th century, panpsychism was the default theory in philosophy of mind, but it saw a decline during the middle years of the 20th century with the rise of logical positivism.[4][5] The recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness has revived interest in panpsychism.[5][6][7]